Device for applying strips



May 28, 1940.

T. H. KRUEGER DEVICE FOR APPLYING STRIPS Filed Jan. 30, 1937 INVENTOR.

ATTORNE Y.

Patented May 28, 1940 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 8 Claims.

This invention relates to processes of applying strips and to devices therefor and is herein illustrated as carried out with heat-sealed adhesive paper strips which are applied to a paper telegraph blank by way of putting the words of a message on the blank.

It has been customary for some years to prepare telegraph messages for delivery by a boy or other carrier by typewriting the messages on 10 a continuous narrow strip of tape and then pasting suitable lengths of the tape on a telegraph blank so that the message was readable almost as if it were directly typed upon the blank by an ordinary typewriting machine.

Usually the strips hitherto used were coated on the back with an adhesive adapted to be softened by water, and the strips were usually attached by moistening them and. applying them to the blank.

This procedure was objectionable because it was messy, awkward, and likely to blur the typewritten characters. All these objections persisted, more or less, even though skillfully devised applicators or moisteners were used for 5 moistening the adhesive. The person using the moistening water, in the endeavor to be sure to use enough, often used too much, with the result that drops of water oozed out from the sides of the strip on to the blank, or drops of water fell from the moistener. In either case the result was, as stated, messy.

Moreover, it was usually needful to make a letter press copy of the completed telegram on moistened tissue paper, with the result that the water in the moist tissue paper further softened the wet adhesive and still further injured the appearance of the telegram, and often made it sticky from oozed-out adhesive. When such a blank is rained upon, or is otherwise wet, the

strips tend to loosen, and almost always, some gum again oozed out and made the blank sticky.

It has already been proposed to substitute a heat softened adhesive for the water-softened adhesive. The procedure used involved either the use of a hot flat metal plate upon which the telegraph blankwas laid and upon which later the lengths of tape were smoothed out by the fingers, or else a continuously heated thimble was carried on the operators finger and used as a smoothing iron to soften the adhesive and fiatten down the lengths of tape.

The most convenient means for heating the thimble was by an electric cord connecting it to a live outlet, but such a cord was often in the way 55, and tiring to the finger of the user. When the hot plate device was used, the finger of the user often became uncomfortably hot even though the plate normally was hardly hot enough actually to burn a. persons fingers.

According to the present invention theseand '5 other objections and disadvantages are overcome. In the form disclosed, the strip, coated with a heat-softened adhesive, is caused to permanently adhere to the blank by a hot metal table or plate, but the strip lengths, are preliminarily [1; caused to temporarily adhere to the blank by being laid out and rubbed down on the blank while it is lying upon a warm plate which may be of poorly conducting or low heat capacity material. I 'II' The warm plate causes the strip lengths to adhere slightly to the blank, and in one form of the invention, while they thus adhere the warm plate may be turned over so as to lay the blank with its'slightly adhering face down upon 20 an underlying fiat hot plate,--hot enough to insure the permanent adhesion of the strips to the blank using an adhesive made as follows:

Paraifine wax having a melting point of 130 to 132 F. was melted and 6% to 30% of thin pale crepe rubber R. C. M. A. not more than 0.04 inch thick was quickly immersed in individual sheets at 200 F. soaked for fifteen minutes and the mixture agitated for two hours in a Warner-Pfiei'derer class III type BB mixer. 80 An age resistant such as of hydroquinone could be added.

To enable this turning over to be done rapidly the blank is preferably clipped to the warm plate. After the strips have been made to ad- 35 here permanently the warm plate may be turned face up again, the blank, carrying the permanently adhering strips, removed, and a fresh blank laid upon the warm blot.

In another form of the invention, especially 40 present invention.

Figure 2 is a plan view of the same with the warm plate inverted.

Figure 3 shows how the warm plate may be lifted for inversion.

Figure 4 is a perspective view of a piece of the tape used.

Figure 5 is a fragmentary plan view of an equipment embodying the hot rollers.

Figure 6 is a side sectional view of the warm plate of Figure 5, taken on the line 6-6 of Fig. 5.

Figure 7 is sectional view of the hot rollers of Figure 5 and some adjacent parts.

To mount upon a telegraph blank It the words of a telegraph message, the blank I0 is laid upon a warm plate l2, being centered by end gages l3 and top gages l4 and is clipped in place by a simple spring paper clip or a clasp H5 at the upper edge [2a of the blank In.

The warm plate I2 is kept warm but not hot because, in the form shown, it consists of a board of the artificial grainless wood known as Masonite, and it is supported above a three-eighths inch hot aluminum plate 5 by the projecting heads of.

' corners.

The hot metal aluminum plate it is shown as heated by a pair of spaced electric resistance coils l8 beneath it and connected to an ordinary flexible. electric cord l9 which provides electric current for the coils l8.

The user lays the strips ll upon the blank H] which is warmed by the warm plate supporting it and centers and smooths down manually with his fingers, the desired lengths of strip ll upon the centered blank Ill to temporarily fasten them to the blank. Then the user seizes two handles 29 projecting from the warm plate l2, one. on each side, and lifts the warm plate by the handles 20.

As the plate I2 is lifted the stub shafts 2 I which join the handles 2?] to the plate, lift the front arms 22 of a swinging U-frame journaled on a transverse shaft 23 at the back of the hot plate It, the stub shafts 2! being journaled in the front arms 22 at 24.

When the plate. I2 is lifted high enough to swing clear of the hot plate Hi, the user twists the handles 20 with his fingers to turn the plate l2 over as shown in broken lines in Figure 3 and then brings it down upon the plate l2 so that the blank ID, with its temporarily adhering strips ll, lies face down upon the hot plate It.

The hot plate It is usually maintained at such a heat that two or three; seconds of this face to face mechanical contact sufiices to cause the strips to adhere firmly to the blank l0, and this heat is found to keep the warm plate l2 interposed between the blank and hot plate I6, at the desired warm temperature for effective temporary fastening of the strips to the blank using the adhesive above mentioned.

That adhesive contains one material, paramne wax, softening at about F. and another material, rubber, softening at a much higher temperature. A suitable composition is the homogeneous mixture obtained when parafi'ine wax having a melting point of 130 to 132 F. was melted and 6% to 30% of thin pale crepe rubber R. C. M. A. not more than. 0.04 inch thick was quickly immersed in individual sheets at 200 F. soaked for fifteen minutes and agitated for two hours in a Warner-Pfleiderer class III type BB mixer. An age resistant, such as /z% of hydroquinone could be added.

The warm plate l2 may now be lifted, the blank l0 removed, and a new blank substituted.

The relatively thick aluminum plate i6 holds enough heat for the procedures described above to be carried out repeatedly and continuously.

In the form shown the structure includes a base 25 on which are screwed down front standards 26 near the corners of the hot aluminum plate It, and longer rear standards 27, giving the plate a slight slope forward.

At the back of the base 25 several inches behind the rear standards 21 are a pair of shaft supporting standards 28, carrying the shaft 23.

The aluminum plate H5 is shown as surrounded by a heat-insulating frame made of Masonite panels 29 almost level with the top of the plate I 6 and held together 'by top and bottom angle irons 30, held by rivets 3| to the panels, the heads 32 of the top rivets easily fitting against the edges 33 of the plate l6 so as to space the panels from it about one-eighth inch, thus keeping the panels from over-heating.

The warm plate i2 is shown as extending about an inch beyond the edges of the hot plate l6. As a result the user of the device is never likely to think he is being burned by hitting any overheated part.

In the form shown the warm plate l2 carries the stub shafts 2| fixed in ears 34 soldered to U-plates 35 which grasp the warm plate I2 at its margins by legs 36 which are too short to reach the hot plate IS.

A strip II, is shown in Figure 4, with its end turned up to show the heat-softened adhesive 31 on its back.

In the form of the invention shown in Figure 5, the telegraph blank 38 is shown as drawn from a continuous roll 39 of blanks, journalled by a shaft 40 in open topped journals ll in brackets 42 fastened to a table 43.

The blank 38 is shown as drawn to the right over supporting rollers M, and under a cutter 45 so as to lie fiat on a warm plate 16 which is shown as heated by an electric coil ll warm enough to cause coated strips like the strips II to slightlyadhere to the blank 38.

The operative draws the blank 38 far enough to provide the standard or desired length of blank 38 on the plate 46, presses down on it coated strips, (not shown), just like the strips H, and then lifts the blank 38, with its strips, so as to tear it off at the knife or cutter $5.

The operative then reaches toward the back of the table 43 and drops the strip-carrying blank into a chute 48 formed by front and rear plates 49 and 50. The chute 48 guides the blank 38 with its adhering heat-softened adhesive-coated strips l l down between a pair of hot rollers 5| which heat the adhesive sufficiently to cause the strips to firmly adhere to the blank and at the same time press the strips firmly and smoothly down on the blank. The rolls are conveniently electrically heated.

The blanks with their now firmly adhering strips then fall on to a chute 52 which guides them to a conveyor belt 53 on which the blanks travel to their desired sorting or delivery point.

In the form shown the warm plate 46, not hot enough to burn even the most careless user, stands on pedestals 54 into which are threaded screws 55 to hold it firmly yet spaced from the table.

The chute 48 and rolls 5| are shown as carried on pedestals 56 bolted tothe table 43. The beltv 53 is shown as running between wings 58 which extend along the travel of the blanks 38 to prevent them from falling from or blowing from the belt 53, and the belt 53 is shown as passing around a pulley 59 journalled in pillars 60 so that the return length is seen at 6| on its way to a second pulley, not shown.

Having thus described in some detail some embodiments of the invention, what is claimed is:

1. A device including a hot plate, a second plate warmed by the hot plate and adapted to receive a blank to warm it to enable strips to be attached thereto by a heat-softened adhesive, and devices for shifting one plate to face the other to cause the blank to be compressed between the two plates to more firmly attach the strips.

2. A device including a hot plate, a second plate warmed by the hot plate, and adapted to receive a blank to warm it to enable. strips to be attached thereto by heat-softened adhesive, arms on which the warm plate is adapted to be swung to and from the hot plate, and journals upon which the warm plate may be swung on the arms to invert it and lay it blank down upon the hot plate to cause permanent adhesion.

3. A device including a thick hot metal plate, a relatively non-conducting plate adapted to lie above the metal plate to be warmed thereby so as to warm a blank lying upon the non-conducting plate, and devices holding the non-conducting plate by means of which it may be inverted to lay the blank face down upon the metal plate.

4. A device including a thick metal plate, means for heating it from below, a relatively nonconducting plate adapted to lie above the metal plate to be warmed thereby so as to warm a blank lying upon the non-conducting plate, swinging arms carrying the non-conducting plate, and journals upon the arms upon which the nonconducting plate may be inverted.

5. A device including a thick metal plate, a heater beneath the metal plate to heat it, a relatively non-conductingplate having knobs by which it may be supported upon the metal plate but spaced therefrom, and a swinging frame upon which the non-conducting plate is journaled.

6. A device including a thick metal plate, a heater beneath the metal plate to heat it, a relatively non-conducting plate having knobs by which it may be supported upon the metal plate but spaced therefrom, and a swinging frame upon which the non-conducting plate is journaled, and a clip adapted to hold a blank upon the nonconducting plate.

7. A device including a hot metal plate, a nonconducting frame surrounding it, a second plate of relatively non-conducting material, a support for the second plate, means for holding a blank upon the second plate so that it may be warmed, and means connected to the support to guide it to lay the blank against the hot plate.

8. A carrier for a paper blank adapted to hold the blank at a warm position so that other paper sheets may be caused to thermoplastically adhere thereto, a heating element adapted to heat the blank hotter, and devices upon which the carrier moves to shift the blank from the warm position to a hotter position heated by said element.

THEODORE H. KRUEGER. 

